Bioinformatics For Dummies (For Dumm (Math & Science)) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Jean-michel, Ph. D. Claverie, Cedric, Ph.d. Notredame
Publisher: For Dummies
Category: Book
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $9.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 69825
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 436
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0470089857
Dewey Decimal Number: 570.285
EAN: 9780470089859
ASIN: 0470089857
Publication Date: December 18, 2006
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Product Description
Were you always curious about biology but were afraid to sit through long hours of dense reading? Did you like the subject when you were in high school but had other plans after you graduated? Now you can explore the human genome and analyze DNA without ever leaving your desktop! Bioinformatics For Dummies is packed with valuable information that introduces you to this exciting new discipline. This easy-to-follow guide leads you step by step through every bioinformatics task that can be done over the Internet. Forget long equations, computer-geek gibberish, and installing bulky programs that slow down your computer. You’ll be amazed at all the things you can accomplish just by logging on and following these trusty directions. You get the tools you need to: - Analyze all types of sequences
- Use all types of databases
- Work with DNA and protein sequences
- Conduct similarity searches
- Build a multiple sequence alignment
- Edit and publish alignments
- Visualize protein 3-D structures
- Construct phylogenetic trees
This up-to-date second edition includes newly created and popular databases and Internet programs as well as multiple new genomes. It provides tips for using servers and places to seek resources to find out about what’s going on in the bioinformatics world. Bioinformatics For Dummies will show you how to get the most out of your PC and the right Web tools so you’ll be searching databases and analyzing sequences like a pro!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Overall a Good Book on Bioinformatics October 5, 2008
This is overall a good book on bioinformatics. If you like the Dummy series, you will like this book. It's more thorough on the biology side of bioinformatics than on the "information" side. However, the concepts are explained in an easy to understand fashion. Worth the price.
 Thorough, in-depth introduction. The "for dummies" is misleading August 6, 2008
Many people are derisive about the "for Dummies" series, believing them to be too simplistic and sometimes even an insult to their intelligence. That can hardly apply to this book, as there is nothing "dummy" about it. You need a significant background in biology and chemistry in order to understand most of it. You need to understand the amino acid structure of proteins, the structure of DNA and many fundamental principles of data analysis. Some knowledge of the structure and operations of databases is also needed. The authors include a large number of web sites containing additional information and that can run analyses.
The coverage is so thorough and detailed that this is the only "for dummies" book that I have seen that could honestly be recommended as a college text. And not just at the freshman level either.
Using the free software on internet sites to help your research March 14, 2007
The first chapter is a short review of DNA and RNA sequences, amino acids, and protein. The other chapters teach you to use the free software found on the Internet to work with your research. Information is also given which helps explain some biochemicals. My skills are in Software Development using C++ language, and I need more information on biochemicals to understand the problems and to develop algorithms to solve them.
My only criticism is that I would like the book to give more biochemical theory before taking up the subject of Internet software.
Overall, this is a good beginner's book on biochemistry.
Good February 16, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am a couple years into a PhD in bioinformatics, but this is the book I started with. I knew some biology and some computer science, but I still found a lot of the databases, etc. confusing and the field has a decided lack of simplified documentation (though it is getting better).
Of course, bioinformatics is a pretty broad topic and no book could possibly cover everything.
If you do not know any biology at all you probably should also get a basic text on genetics/molecular biology (or read thema at the NCBI web site books section for free). You don't need anything in depth to read the dummies book, just at the level of an introductory biology book. Hint: DNA to RNA, RNA to Protein. And you want to know why proteins are similar because proteins with similar amino acid sequences often have similar chemical properties and therefore similar functions, so if you know what one protein does you can guess what a protein like it probably does.
:-)
And despite the name of the book the authors are REAL bioinformaticists (T-Coffee rocks!)
Yes, It's Really Written at the For Dummies Level. January 18, 2007
This book kind of blew me away. Bioinformatics is such a big word.
Then in the second chapter they tell you 'How Most People Use Bioinformatics.' And all of a sudden they have you on line to the National Library of Medicine at the National Institute of Health. They have you looking at protein sequences, and you even understand what they are saying.
This is a 'For Dummies' book. It is written in their traditional style, assuming that you know very little -- well to be sure they say they are making the assumption that 'You likely have a background in molecular biology. If you don't - or if you need to brush up on your molecular biology - Chapter 1 gives you a brief overview of the basics.'
I found that the first few chapters went down pretty easily. By part IV it had gone further than I wanted to go, and I quit reading.
BUT if I were going to be taking a course in bioinformatics, or even thinking about taking such a course, or just looking at a degree in biology, I'd spend a week or two getting around this book. It's written a hell of a lot better than any text you're likely to get assigned, and at its price it's quite a deal.
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